Tag: meme Page 2 of 20

Day 17 – Favorite mini series

While lots of mini-series have been made in recent years, they always seem to be an artifact of the past to me. Back in the 1970s and early 1980s, a number of Big Event™ mini-series captured the public imagination. Roots, The Winds of War, Shogun, The Thorn Birds, The Blue and the Grey, the list was endless and unrelenting. Without watching a single frame of these, you knew two things for certain: everyone was going to be talking about them, and sooner or later Richard Chamberlain was likely to show up.

Of course, these epic “TV Events” aren’t the only mini-series. Cable has used the format to great effect to tell stories too large do in a single movie. HBO recently spent over $200 million on The Pacific, a sprawling World War II historical drama, and before that produced the award-winning Band of Brothers to tell the story of that war’s European theatre. Back in 2000, the Sci-Fi channel did what David Lynch wasn’t allowed to do 15 years previously: take six hours to bring Frank Herbert’s Dune to the screen.

But this is a post about favourites, and if I had to choose a favourite mini-series of all time, I’m going to go with the 1994 adaptation of Stephen King’s The Stand. The Stand is my favourite of King’s novels, and it really needed the broad canvas of a mini-series to do it justice. The cast is stellar, including Gary Sinese, one of my favourite actors, along with Molly Ringwald, Ruby Dee, Matt Frewer, Ray Walston, and other notables. Up to this point, most adaptations of King’s work were somewhat regrettable, with a couple of odd exceptions, but The Stand was a truly stunning piece of work, and still holds up as a quality production 15 years later. You can get it on DVD. I recommend it.

Honourable mention: Neverwhere, produced for the BBC from a script by Neil Gaiman. It took forever for this to come out on DVD, but it was worth the wait. A great deal of Gaiman’s vision didn’t make it to the screen (and can be found restored in the subsequent novel), but the potential can be seen, and it still feels like a Gaiman story brought to life. Again, recommended.

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Day 16 – Your guilty pleasure show

I pondered this one all weekend, and to be honest, I don’t have one.  More to the point, I can’t really think of a show that I consider a “guilty pleasure”.

On the other hand, I’ve never been a big fan of the concept of “guilty pleasures” anyway.  I’m enough of a hedonist that I tend not to feel guilty about my pleasures, whatever they might be, and I’m enough of an iconoclast that I don’t tend to get too put out if I have personal tastes that don’t dovetail neatly with the rest of society.

I really don’t have a good answer for this one, guys. I’m not ashamed of any of the media I consume, and I think that you can’t really call it a *guilty* pleasure without that.

I’ll try and do better with the next one.

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Day 15 – Favorite female character

Wow. This one is hard. (“That’s what SHE said…” “Shut up.”)

Even if I limit this to favourite female character in a show I’m currently watching, it’s a hard choice. Alyson Hannigan’s sweetly sexy Lily on How I Met Your Mother, Kaley Cuoco’s down-to-earth Penny on The Big Bang Theory. Jayma Mays’s neurotic Emma on Glee, Tiffani Thiessen’s sensible Elizabeth on White Collar…There’s a lot to choose from.

In the end, though, I’m going to pick Stana Katic’s Detective Kate Beckett on ABC’s Castle. Katic’s Beckett is smart, tough, and drop-dead gorgeous. The chemistry between her and Nathan Fillion’s Richard Castle is incredible, and she’s capable of saying more with a look than anyone on television. I’ve seen Beckett and Castle have entire conversations without speaking a word, which is really awesome.

I considered who I might pick if I opened this up to female characters from any show ever, but I don’t think I could begin to narrow it down to a top 10, let alone a single favourite. So I’ll stick with my self-imposed limitation of choosing from things I’m currently watching. Because it’s my journal, and I’m allowed to do that. 🙂

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Day 14 – Favorite male character

If I’d been keeping up with this and written t his back when I first started this “one month” meme *mumble* months ago, I’d have had an entirely different answer to this question, but I’ve since acquired a new obsession favourite TV show, namely USA Network’s White Collar

Which brings me to Neal Caffrey.

The short premise of the show is “He’s a charming con-man with a heart of gold. He’s the FBI agent who put him in prison. They fight crime!” Specifically, they fight the kind of high-stakes, big money crimes that you’d expect the “white collar’ division of the FBI to tackle: art heists, stock swindles, counterfeiting, etc. The sorts of crimes that Neal specialised in, and quite often ends up going undercover to help solve, because he moves easily in that world.

I like Neal Caffrey because he has style. He dresses well, he’s charming, extremely intelligent and well-spoken, has a wicked sense of humour, a great sense of fun and adventure, and a taste for the finer things in life. I remarked recently to kitanzi that I often “aspired to a level of sophistication that I do not always possess.”, and this is a character that embodies all of those traits that I admire and covet. (Well, except for the “criminal” part of it. But, hey, nobody’s perfect.)

I will even admit that he directly inspired me to take a critical look at my own personal sartorial style and make some needed changes. So this show has done me a great deal of personal psychic good.

If you’re not watching White Collar, do give it a try. Many of the things I love about the show (particularly the relationship between Neal and FBI Agent Peter Burke, Burke’s relationship with his wife Elizabeth, the amazingly crisp dialogue, the fantastic undercover heist plots, and the narrative sub-plot that runs throughout the entire show) lie outside the scope of this entry. But it’s hands-down my favourite show on television, and USA just announced that it is being renewed for a 3rd season. I recommend it highly to anyone.

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Day 13 – Favourite childhood show

It’s hard to pick just one show, as I was one of those kids in the TV age who grew up on the stuff. Also, where precisely would the dividing line be between childhood and not-childhood shows.

But thinking of it, there’s a show I remember quite fondly. It debuted when I was 10, and I watched it on and off for a number of years: PBS’s kid’s science programme 3-2-1 Contact

3-2-1 Contact was a magazine style program, with several (often related) segments dealing with science and nature. It also contained a running serial detective series with three kids, who would get caught up in various little mysteries, and solve them using some science trick or another:

Not sure how well they hold up after 30 years, though it was a bit of fun to rewatch these clips. Sadly, it doesn’t appear that this show has ever been released on DVD. C’mon, CTW, let’s see some love for the classics! 🙂

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Day 12 – An episode you’ve watched more than 5 times

There’s a lot of episodes I’ve watched more than five times. I’ve always been one to revisit books, movies, and TV series that I really enjoy.

But the single episode of a TV series I’ve likely watched more times than any other, hands down, is the episode “Inferno’ from Coupling. This is largely because kitanzi and I tend to try and hook anyone who will sit still long enough on the show, and partly because it contains one of the greatest comedy rants of all time:

In all seriousness, if you’ve never seen Coupling, you should give it a try. Smart, snappy, and funny: everything you could ever ask from a situation comedy.

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Day 11 – A show that disappointed you

I hadn’t forgotten this, but this question had me stumped. The truth is that I couldn’t think of a single show that I’d call disappointing, at least in the sense of “I was really looking forward to this and it turned out to be meh.” Certainly there are shows that went in directions that disappointed me: House leaps to mind as a show that I loved, and which eventually chased me away with the direction it was going. (I’ve been told it got better, but I’ve not bothered trying to find out.)

I think the closest I can come up with for a show that disappointed me on the offset was Ricky Gervais’s The Office. When it first started airing over here, it was being lauded in commercials as the best new comedy in ages and a brilliant satire. So I decided to check it out, and found it dreadfully, sometimes painfully, unfunny. I’ve liked Gervais in other things, so it’s not just his sense of humour not connecting with me, but I really couldn’t get into it. After three different episodes completely failing to amuse me, I gave it up. (I have no opinion on the US version with Steve Carrell, etc, as I’ve never watched it either.)

I promise more regular updates as we delve into somewhat easier questions. 🙂

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Day 10 – A show you thought you wouldn’t like but ended up loving

It was at the Dead Dog dinner at OVFF that we found ourselves sharing a table with our good friend markbernstein, and the animated conversion turned its way to television, as it does. We listed the various things we were watching, and Mark began to enthusiastically tell us about his favourite show, So You Think You Can Dance

I have to admit, I was sceptical. I’m not a big fan of “reality Tv’ as a genre; while I admit some are less tawdry than others, they all seem to have the same sort of backbiting commentary and bitter factionalism, which honestly I tend not to find entertaining over long stretches of time. But Mark insisted that SYTYCD had a different tone and that we should give it a try. That week was going to be the first episode with the Top 20 from that season (season 6), and thus would be a good point to jump on. So when we got home, we thought “well, why not” and punched it up on the Tivo, determined to at least give it a fair viewing before writing it off.

I wasn’t surprised to find it mildly entertaining. Good dance is always fun to watch, and the mix of styles (both in the variety of performers and the variety of choreography) kept it from developing any sense of sameness, and if nothing else, it was (to steal kitanzi‘s phrase) “pretty people doing pretty things’, which isn’t a bad way to spend a couple of hours when nothing else is on.

I was surprised to see how quickly we both got invested in the show and the contestants. From the first episode, we were already noting our favourites, and as the weeks passed, we got more and more connected to these people. We were actually disappointed when one of “our” dancers went home, and before we knew it, it went from “something to fill the slow season” to “must-see TV”. I even ditched a standing engagement so we could watch the season finale live and actually vote, something we didn’t do up to that point (usually we were watching the episodes 24 hours after they aired.) The first week after the finale, we had pangs of withdrawal, because our new favourite show wasn’t on, and we eagerly looked forward to the start of Season 7 (just recently completed).

I’ve given a lot of thought to why this show has managed to capture my heart, when no other show like it has been able. I’m not that big a dance fan¹; if it were merely the form of art, I’d expect myself to like American Idol, and I don’t. There’s nothing particularly novel about the format, which has been used on everything from Vatican City Idol to The Belgian Congo’s Got Talent, none of which lured me in.

I think the big difference for me is how overwhelmingly positive the whole show is. None of the judges are snarky for the sake of being snarky; they genuinely critique the performances², giving praise when its merited and criticism when it’s needed, but there’s no viciousness in their remarks. More to the point, the competitors seem to genuinely like each other. You can see them turning into a company by the middle of the season. They support each other, cheer each other on, and get emotional when one of them has to go. The whole thing is just uplifting in tone, and the world needs more of that.

I owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to Mark, without whom I would likely never have taken a moment to consider watching this show. I’m already looking forward to Season 8!

¹Well, I wasn’t then, at least. It’s grown rather a bit on me.
²I’ve done competition theatre. I know the difference.

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From , via , the 30-Day TV Meme.

Day 08 – A show everyone should watch

Well, obviously, any of the shows I watch i think others should, because I think they’re awesome. But to pick one is hard.

I’m going to go with Mythbusters, which is hardly in dire need of a ratings boost, but has many qualities that I really like. It’s a lot of fun, and it shows practical science (and the scientific method) as something that’s enormously cool. Even when they go in with expectations of results, they let the data speak for itself. And when their methods are flawed and the fans call them on it, they revisit their work in many cases.

Most science documentaries operate under the assumption that if you’re watching it, you already think science is cool. Mythbusters is populist science taken the extreme, and it’s something I think everyone can get something out of,

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